What Will It Take For Sustainability To Stick?
From the bio-revolution to new legislation, there are signs that a change for good is underway in the fashion industry.
By Dana Thomas for Elle UK
When Covid-19 struck, and the world came to a standstill, the fashion business underwent a very public environmental and social re-evaluation - one that was, and still is, greatly needed. The fashion industry produces between 100 and 150 billion items a year - nobody really knows, because no one has to keep count - and only 80% are sold; the remaining 20 percent are destroyed or dumped in landfill before ever hitting the retail floor. Only 1% of fashion that is sold is recycled.
Hearing designers and executives call for change was heartening. I have reported on the fashion industry for 35 years, starting at The Washington Post in the late 1980s, and thought I knew the business—how our clothes were made, who made them, what the factories were like.
Then I started researching for my book, Fashionopolis: The Price of Fast Fashion and the Future of Clothes, and saw a completely different side of the industry: filthy sweatshops i…
